


Now if I admit defeat

by belmanoir



Category: Kyle XY
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foss has the flu, and Kyle wants to take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now if I admit defeat

Tom has the flu. He hates it. He feels weak and useless. He's making some adjustments to the climbing wall, hoping he doesn't sneeze and hammer his own thumb, when Kyle walks in.

Tom sneezes and hammers his own thumb. Smothering a curse, he whirls around. "What is it, Kyle?"

Kyle frowns at him. "You should be in bed."

"I'm not that sick."

Kyle looks mildly disapproving. "I brought you soup."

"Thanks, just leave it on the table."

"It's hot now."

Just raising his voice feels like it would knock him out right now, so Tom follows Kyle over to the corner of the warehouse he eats and sleeps in and sits down. The kid brought a spoon, too, a real metal spoon from the Tragers' kitchen. 

"I have spoons," Tom says irritably.

Kyle looks around in puzzlement, trying to figure out where they'd be kept.

Tom doesn't tell him. He takes the spoon and starts shoveling soup into his mouth. The sooner he eats this, the sooner Kyle will go home and he can get back to work. 

He hears a seal break. Kyle is opening one of those little bottles of orange juice. Not even Minute Maid--it's Odwalla. Overpriced hippie crap, just like the soup, which by the way could use some more salt. It figures that the Tragers shop at the Puget Commie Co-op. 

The bottle of juice plops down on the table next to the soup. He takes a swig. The acid burns his sore throat, but Kyle smiles.

"Let me take your temperature."

Tom grimaces. "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."

"What?"

"I'm fine," he says firmly, and sneezes. Damn. Kyle puts a hand on his forehead, and leaves it there way too long. "Are you trying to heal me?"

"No." Kyle's gotten a lot better at lying, but not good enough to fool Tom. 

"There's no cure for the common cold."

Kyle frowns. "It's not a cold. It's the flu. You have a fever of 102.4 degrees. If it rises much higher, it could be dangerous."

"Take your damn hand off my forehead." 

Kyle does. Tom goes back to the soup. He's eaten most of it before he senses something is wrong. He looks up and Kyle is bone-white, a thin trickle of blood running from his nose.

He can raise his voice after all. Too bad it's a lot less intimidating with his nose stuffed up. "What the hell are you doing?" It's obvious what the kid is doing. He's trying to heal Tom's flu without touching him. "It's just the flu, you're gonna kill yourself to stop me sneezing?" He storms over to his box of Kleenex, ignoring the headrush when he stands, and grabs a few.

Kyle reaches for them. Tom takes his chin in his hand and tips his head back, maybe a little rougher than he should, wiping away the blood himself. "Ow," Kyle says in a muffled voice.

"Serves you right." Tom's hand is trembling, but he doesn't know if that's the fever or just the sick fear he lives with every day. "You're just like Baylin. He overextended himself for years, and he turned his brain into mush. Is that what you want? You want to die bit by bit? You want to use yourself up until you can't remember your own damn name? Until you need someone to wipe your ass for you?" 

Kyle's brow creases with concern. "Foss, you're shaking. Let me--"

Tom throws off his arm. "You don't have to take care of me, Kyle!"

"Someone has to," Kyle says stubbornly. "You're sick. And you don't have anyone else, so it's my responsibility." There's still some smeared blood on his upper lip.

Tom turns away. His throat hurts like a bitch when he swallows. Maybe he should take an aspirin. "Not everything is your responsibility. Go home and take care of yourself for a change."

"You _always_ put other people first," Kyle says angrily. "How can you expect me to do less?"

"What are you talking about?" 

Kyle's eyes are red and swollen and his voice is thick. "Everything that you do is for me or Adam Baylin. You've only ever tried to keep us safe and give us what _we_ wanted. No matter what."

Tom's head swims. _But I don't want anything._ He's not too out of it to know that if he said it out loud, it would sound pathetic. 

Kyle's said this before, this crap about him giving up everything for Kyle. Since Tom never gave up anything he cared a damn about, he just assumed Kyle was talking about what he'd sacrificed to avoid thinking about the things Tom had _done_ for him. But no, Kyle _believes_ it. "Yeah, well, you don't want to be like me, do you?"

"Yes, I do!" Always honest, he adds, "In some ways."

Tom is appalled. "Don't be stupid and naïve." He still remembers Kyle crying for the people Tom killed at Zzyzx, how he said, _We're responsible._

_**I'm** responsible,_ Tom told him. He thought Kyle believed him, that Kyle understood that Tom was there to make sure Kyle never had to be anything like him at all. 

Kyle glares back at him, not giving an inch. "I'm not naïve." 

Tom laughs--he can't help it--and Kyle's glare intensifies. His head aches and his brain isn't working right. There's only one victory he has any chance at right now, so he cuts his losses. "If I go to bed, will you promise you won't try to heal me again?"

Kyle's shoulders relax a little. "If you go to bed _and_ let me stay and take care of you."

"It's just the flu!"

"I need to monitor your fever. I can make you tea and cook you supper, too. It's okay, I brought my homework."

Tom doesn't have the energy to argue anymore. He barely has the energy to get out of his chair. Making sure the Kleenex are within easy reach, he toes off his shoes and crawls into his cot. 

Kyle puts a CD in the player and turns it on. Chopin's "Nocturne No. 8 In D Flat Major." Tom's never been a big fan of classical music, but he played this piece for Kyle so many times that's it familiar, even soothing.

He feels safe, he realizes with surprise. Because a seventeen-year-old kid is sitting cross-legged on the floor by his bed clicking away at his laptop. Taylor would have had a field day with that. "I'm going to have to be a better example," he mumbles.

Kyle gives him a sidelong smile. "Yes. Nicole says I'm very impressionable."

"Smart lady."

He puts a hand on Tom's forehead again. Tom closes his eyes and lets himself be weak and useless, just this once.


End file.
